Blackhawk Aerospace has received approval of its 30th Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) which is for the XP67A Engine+ Upgrade for the King Air 300. Additional recent approvals include the addition of European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certifications for the True Blue Power TB44 Lithium Ion battery on the…
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Colorado’s Contours, Part II: Discovering the Marvels of Man and Nature
In Part I of this series, we explored two of Colorado’s amazing national parks and the airports that serve them – Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), northwest of Denver, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (BCGNP), just east of Montrose. Colorado has two other national parks worthy of your exploration. However, if you…
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Icing in Flight: Part I
This article is written in hopes that it will serve as a useful reminder about how to configure your King Air for in-flight icing encounters. If you have any significant amount of flight time in a King Air, I suppose that you have become quite comfortable with flying and handling the airplane in icing conditions.…
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Buyer Due Diligence
Due diligence, simply stated, is “examining things or people before buying or employing them.” (macmillanthesaurus.com) I’m talking about a prepurchase inspection, aka, the pre-buy. There is a lot of pushback against them, which makes no sense to me. In buying a King Air, you’re going to part with upward of a million dollars (or maybe…
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The Super King Air Arrives
Beech Aircraft Corporation tightened its grip on the twin-engine turboprop market by introducing the Model 200 Super King Air – an airplane that quickly established itself as the crown jewel of the company’s product line. Previously published in part in the Sept./Oct. 2012 issue of this magazine. In 1973 as Beech Aircraft Corporation approached the…
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Colorado’s Contours, Part I: Flying To and Touring Colorado’s National Parks
An old joke among pilots is that flying to anywhere in eastern Colorado is basically just a flight into western Kansas. Indeed, the eastern one-third of Colorado has more in common with Kansas and Nebraska than it does with the mountainous terrain that Colorado is famous for. What is easy to miss is the steady…
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King Air Gathering Sept. 23-26, 2021 Register Now!
Available spots are filling up every day for the 2021 King Air Gathering (KAG) being held Sept. 23-26 at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum adjacent to the Tullahoma, Tennessee, Regional Airport (THA). If you are thinking you might like to attend, you may not want to wait much longer to register as space is limited. If…
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Practice Demonstration of VMCA
Have you ever seen this procedure described? I hope your answer is “Yes,” since it is the title of a procedure presented in the Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH). Quiz time: In what POH section will you find it? Section 3, Emergency Procedure? Section 3A, Abnormal Procedures? Or Section 4, Normal Procedures? I will wager that…
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Bigger and Better – The Model 100
In its ongoing quest to develop improved versions of the highly successful King Air platform, Beech Aircraft Corporation once again dipped into its “recipe” book and blended the best of the Model 90 and the Model 99 to create the Model 100 – flagship of the Beechcraft fleet. By the late 1960s, Olive Ann Beech…
Textron Aviation Announces Customer Portal Dashboard
Textron Aviation recently released the Customer Portal Dashboard (https://ww2.txtav.com/Dashboard). The company says this update allows customers to customize their tools and request access to all aspects of the Customer Portal through one, easy-to-use webpage. The tiled Dashboard includes direct links to Billing Management, Parts & Claims, Program Balances, Service Management, Technical Publications and EProcurement. Service…